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Wednesday, 5 October 2011

Encounters with Place

Encounters
With Place

A Perthshire Visual Artists Forum exhibition featuring works selected by
Arthur Watson a major Scottish sculptor, printmaker and educator. The show presents an intriguing range
of work by 20 PVAF member artists.

The venue
is at Threshold Artspace, Perth Theatre, 185 High Street, Perth PH1 5UW. The exhibition is open from 24th
October 2011 to 20th February 2012, Monday to
Saturday, 10am – 5pm or until 10pm on performance evenings (closed Sunday). www.horsecross.co.uk

For further details and information on
PVAF, visit the web site at www.pvaf.org.uk

Artists have engaged with many aspects of Place,
from their own gardens to their upbringing, incidental and particular
landscapes and buildings, from remote woodland to major cities. The media used
include, painting, sculpture, drawing, photography, digital images,
screenprinting, etching, book form
and video.

Using drawing techniques Aileen Stackhouse’s work Treeline references
places along the River Ericht and over the Knockie hill behind Blairgowrie,
while Malize McBride’s abstract
landscape ‘Elie , geologically’ references the varied geology of Elie in Fife. Mary Golden's two works ‘Evening Hill’ & ‘Rising Mist’ use
paint and drawing respectively to capture the breathtaking moments when the mist and cloud suddenly clear.

Chris Jenkinson’s painting ‘Sexy Curve’s records the visual overload of one’s senses in New York where in the midst of this
organised chaos one can find patterns and rhythms. By contrast Astrid Leeson’s
small delicate painting on plaster
'Journey to work’ records
an often unnoticed place she passes on her way to work.

Various printing processes feature in the exhibition
. Dawson Murray uses the etching
process to turn the fennel plant
of his garden into an abstract
dream like space while Thora Clyne’s etchings show details from a chestnut flour mill, centuries
old in Tuscany.

Clare Yarrington’s two screenprints ‘Jammed II & III ‘climb the corners of a Theatre space, suggestive of
the handhold a climber has on the specific rockface while climbing.

Photography is represented by George Logan’s images “Dark Time’ which are a visual exploration into a
landscape of contradiction, of chaos and yet also of a profound mental solace. In direct contrast to this, Gillean
Hunt represents the bottom of her
garden with her ‘dancing with ....’ abstract plant images.

Margaret Bathgate documents installations of her textile works within the gothic style Memorial Chapel on
Falkland Estate. Tricia Anderson has two photographs which aim to capture the
feeling and spirit of Sherrifmuir before during and after a storm and Genie Dee’s photographic work shows
multiple views of Platform 7 at Perth railway station a place she has got to
know rather well .

Digital images
are featured by three artists. Emma Herman-Smith creates graphic works exploring the dominance of pylons and tangles of telephone wires in the
landscape. Su Grierson creates digital photographic
works ‘Flatland and Dark
Forest’ with
incorporated texts that suggest an
additional element of experiential or conceptual engagement and Jackie Smith’s digital print ‘Rhew’ refers to a Scottish aquatic loch environment.

Shelagh Atkinson’s screenprints engage with her own
communist upbringing with images, a book form and video referring to St
Petersburg, while Lesley McDermott’s screenprints refer to the places
visited in her travels as a young woman. Also inspired by travel, the
mixed media work of Liz Murray
refers back to the dance halls of 1920's Paris.

Ann Coomber
brings us the show’s only
sculpture ‘The sea is singing’ an abstract piece that refers directly to her
experience on a deserted Norfolk
Beach.